A Maryland judge committed suicide Friday morning, just as federals showed up at his home in Henderson to arrest him in a child sexual abuse case.
Caroline County Circuit Judge Jonathan Newell, 50, has been on leave since July after being caught in an investigation into allegations he had a hidden camera that captured nude images of boys in his bathroom. When FBI agents showed up at his door Friday morning to arrest him for a federal criminal complaint, they found him “suffering an apparent self-inflicted gun wound,” the Maryland Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday. He was pronounced dead at 6:43 a.m.
“Maryland State Police will lead the investigation into the apparent suicide,” prosecutors said in a press release Friday afternoon.
On Friday, Newell’s neighbor, Kimberly Keith, posted on Facebook images that appeared to show FBI agents located outside the judge’s house demanding a speaker to come out. He wrote that he heard sounds he thought were fired, followed shortly after by an ambulance.
The suicide occurred when Newell was to be arrested on federal charges of sexually exploiting a child, prosecutors said. He had been overworked in court since police first raided his home on July 24 and had extended it until later this month, the Baltimore Sun. reported.
According to a copy of the criminal complaint that was sealed Friday, Maryland State Police investigators in July had responded to a call about a minor who found a video camera in the bathroom of Newell’s cabin in Fishing Creek, Maryland. .
Investigators interviewed two boys, both minors, who said they had “spent the night” with Newell on July 22, when they allegedly discovered a hidden camera.
One of the boys told investigators that after undressing in the bathroom he found a camera that was on and looking into the shower inside a small black box on a shelf in the corner of the bathroom
After explaining to the other boy the camera he had discovered, the two boys boarded Newell’s boat and the two communicated to the parents the bathroom camera, according to the documentation. Subsequently, his parents contacted law enforcement.
The boy who discovered the camera also said another adult man and four boys had spent the night in the cabin and had left earlier that morning.
When confronted by law enforcement, Newell refused to place a camera in the bathroom or notice the presence of a camera, saying, “Like I said, there were six other people here.”
While being interviewed by investigators, Newell allegedly chewed and swallowed a memory card from the camera, after asking for the phone to be charged and then appearing to reach under the bed and grab an object in his fist which was then placed in the mouth. According to the complaint, a computed tomography showed that he had ingested a strange object, possibly a metal one.
During their investigation, authorities interviewed seven other teenagers, born between 2002 and 2007, about their relationship with Newell. According to the complaint, most teens told investigators they knew Newell for years, some from elementary school. The teens described the shower in Newell’s house or cabin and almost all said that “while they were in the bathroom, Newell checked their bodies for ticks,” according to the complaint.
“At least two of the males testified that they were naked when Newell checked them for ticks; one said he moved his own genitals for Newell to look for ticks, and the other initially couldn’t remember if Newell touched his genitals, but he later stated that Newell once or twice moved the child’s genitals in search of ticks, ”the complaint said.
Authorities executed state search orders for Newell’s cabin and home in Henderson, Maryland, as well as his truck, boat and office where they discovered and confiscated several digital devices, according to the complaint.
During their search, authorities discovered a hard drive containing several videos of young people showering that appear to date from September 2014, according to the titles of some of the videos. Newell is also captured in some images that fix the camera. According to the complaint, Newell can also be seen in a video touching a young man’s naked body and stretching his buttocks.
According to the Ground, before disabling his Facebook page after the police raid, a number of posts about mentoring the boys included images of the campaign trail, the hunting lodge and the fighting matches.
He Ground He noted that in a March 2020 post, Newell discussed an interaction with a 13-year-old neighbor during the pandemic and his belief that boys “especially need physical contact.”
“Normally, to cheer him up, I would have teased him, patted him on the shoulder, wrapped his sweaty hair around him, and even sent him on his way with a little hat on his ass. “Newell wrote Ground. “I think guys especially need physical contact – picking, biting, ripping, it’s part of how they communicate and show affection, even if it occasionally leads to a fight.”
In 2016, Newell, a Republican, was named judge of Caroline County’s only circuit court by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. He held that role in 2018 and served a 15-year term before taking his life.
If you or a loved one has suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the crisis text line by texting TALK at 741741 .